Why Lebron James (And You) Should Read This Book

A new book about English soccer legend Bill Shankly can teach Lebron James—and the rest of us—about carving out a legacy, and what sports can mean.

It's no secret that Americans turn their attention to soccer only once every four years, when the World Cup comes around. So if we could ever urge you to read a great soccer story, it's right now, when we're deep in the throes of that spectacle (even though your interest may have slightly waned after Tuesday's loss). But we especially recommend a new book, Red or Dead, to America's newest high-profile soccer fan, LeBron James (did you catch his cameo in that World Cup commercial?), who may or may not be making The Decision 2.0 in the coming weeks.

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In Red or Dead (Melville House Publishing, $30), English writer David Peace has written an epic of sports literature. Peace tells the story of Bill Shankly, the legendary Liverpool manager, one of the most revered figures in the history of English soccer. Shankly took over at Liverpool Football Club at the dawn of the sixties and utterly remade the club, taking it from a middling second-tier team and building it into the world-renowned powerhouse it is today.

Peace casts the true story of Shankly's career as a novel, but one so deeply researched and grounded in fact that its fundamental truth is unmistakable. The book faithfully chronicles Shankly's nearly fifteen years guiding the club, first into the top division of English soccer, then on to three league championships, two FA Cups, and a European UEFA Cup.

But it isn't Shankly's victories alone that secure his place in British soccer history. Rather, Peace presents Shankly as an antidote to what ails our present time, in sports and in the wider world. His ethos could well be summed up as the antithesis of everything a modern athlete like James stands for: the monumental self-regard, the alienation of fans, the disconnect from ordinary working people.

Raised amid hardship in a coal-mining village in Scotland, Shankly worked his way out of the mines and into the top ranks of professional players, then into coaching. As a manager, Shankly brought a fundamental decency and honesty to the game, and a communal philosophy of team play as a sublime, almost noble collaborative effort—not unlike the 2014 San Antonio Spurs. Shankly knew in his bones what soccer meant, and why it mattered, and instilled in his players the notion that they were privileged to play the game, and that they played not for the club's board of directors or for any one man's legacy, but for the fans: for the uplift of the people of Liverpool.

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Here was a top-level manager, a national figure, who personally answered every fan letter; who was happy to talk about the team with people who stopped him in the street; who regularly played Sunday afternoon pickup with the kids who lived in his modest Liverpool neighborhood. Peace lets us see and practically feel the relentless effort and sacrifice, the Sisyphean repetition and training needed to sustain success at that level of competition. (And to be fair, by the end of the book, you begin to think maybe it's not so easy being LeBron, after all.) Peace weaves that same feeling into the prose of the book. Like a modern-day Beowulf, Red or Dead is told in an incantatory language that repeats and recites, almost hypnotically, phrases, names, dates, and facts in a lucid, simple vernacular, until they take on an almost poetic power.

The story builds toward a stunning event (spoiler)—Shankly's abrupt resignation. The aftermath of his departure forms a moving second act, and it's here where the book transcends sports and takes on larger things. It's these final chapters that James should pay attention to (as should we). James enters into free agency again this week, and he will again contemplate taking his talents elsewhere. How he acquits himself this next time is entirely up to him. He has a chance, if he wants it, to do things differently.

Not long ago, James very publicly bought a minority stake in a storied European football club, and he's made a big show of rooting for it, turning up at matches, mugging for pictures with players, appearing at press conferences in club gear. What club did James buy into, of all the clubs in the all the world?

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